Foreign doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs will be able to migrate to Britain without a job offer, but less skilled migrants will find it much harder to enter the country under new proposals published by the Home Office today.

In the first detailed outline of the Government's controversial points-based immigration plan for migrants from outside the EU, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, revealed five "tiers" of applicants, each with their own entry requirements.

The Government's attempt to "manage migration" by following Canadian and American points-based immigration rules was first laid out in last year's Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill.

Since then it has been criticised by anti-immigration groups for not setting quotas on foreigners and by pro-immigration groups for being overly complex.

Tony Blair described the new measures to a group of Indian university students in a live video conference with Delhi this morning, saying it would be easier and fairer for highly skilled graduates to come and work in the UK in the future.

"We want students to come and study in our universities and we want highly skilled workers that we need for our economy, but we want to prevent abuses of the immigration system," he said.

"We have benefited enormously from migration in our country and the Indian community has made a huge contribution.

"I hope that you will find it both easier and also fairer."

Mr Clarke said that the new rules, due to be in place by 2008, would provide a "simple, clear system" to replace some 80 different ways currently available to come into the UK to work. Many schemes that allow low-skilled workers to come to the UK, including those for seasonal workers and fruit pickers, will be closed.

While conceding that it was "very difficult to judge" the consequences of the policy, Mr Clarke said: "What I am certain of is - and all the surveys indicate this - that migration to work and study here is beneficial to our economy as well as to those who migrate here. The point is to control it properly.

"The precise reason for this points-based system is to ensure that instead of this very complex set of routes, we have a very clear route, which people will be able to apply online for from a distance," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The system is tilted in favour of "highly skilled individuals" such as scientists, financial workers and IT experts, whose careers and qualifications in their home country will help them amass the points necessary to win a work permit without a firm job offer in the UK.

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